Back on the page
Taking the messy dive into back into writing — like the recovering perfectionist I am.
I had lunch with a friend today.
I arrived 15 minutes late, frazzled and in a tizzy. I hate hate being late. Sure, adhd says I always have more time than I do. It’s not for lack of effort. Being late is not a “cute” quality I admire.
I thought sure, I can jump from zoom-recording my first big solo work presentation to send to a tony robbins-investor company to my first virtual psych eval with a new doctor to somehow wrapping up work in under an hour — saving time for last-minute asks of course! — and make it to lunch with a friend at 12:30 pm, presentable, Ghost leash in hand.
Nailed it.
Poor Sarah ended up waiting for me at the same coffee shop, different location. But we made it together eventually and enjoyed one of those lovely afternoons of meandering conversation where one topic skips to another. And it eventually led us here, to substack, and for me, to writing just to write.
See, I often start and stop my writing endeavors, petrified to have to stick to one certain topic and set theme (or no one will want to read it! or, what if i lose interest? grow? change?!). Like the mere shifting of the title of this blog — from “What Don’t Tequila” (because what if I’m a girl who right now, doesn’t drink tequila?) to “recoverie” because aren't we all always healing from something?,) a name that came to me after I got home from said lunch today, as I reveled in post-savasana sparks of insight and inspired action.
And the thing is, none of the above things matter to you as a reader (most likely). And they certainly don’t matter to a writer who just needs to freaking write.
When it comes to being a writer who needs to write but doesn’t, there’s a deep sense of uncomfortable longing. An unsettled feeling things aren’t quite right. Expressing myself through words gives fire to my life. Putting ink on the page keeps the blood trickling a bit smoother through my veins. And much like Dumbledor draws memories out of his head with the tip of his wand, gently bottling the bright whisps into little glass bottles around the pensieve, I too must relieve my overactive brain, put to rest the internal kitten clawing at the corners of my heart.
The life of an artist isn’t easy. You’re never free unless you are doing your art. But I guess doing your art is better than drinking a lot or filling up wih chocolate. I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren’t writing or are having trouble writing. It’s not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing.
- Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
I’m not drinking right now, nor am I addicted to chocolate. But maybe it’s worry. Or anxiety. Or irritability, being unsettled. Whatever it is, I turn to the need to control my “negative” emotions when what I really need is to be set free. This post exists simply because I needed to write it, right now, from my yoga mat on the floor of my second bedroom-turned-home office.
I’m not trying to build a way to pay my bills from these pages but explore — and to me, tonight, this means setting down the mask of perfection and the need to wrap words and sentences into bows. Sometimes they need to just do their own thing. So I’ll let them, right here, back on the page.